


Macbeth Victorious, or The Play of Cards

by marcelo



Category: Macbeth - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 07:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcelo/pseuds/marcelo
Summary: Many years have passed since the death of Baquo and his son.





	Macbeth Victorious, or The Play of Cards

(_Night. Moonlight that looks like fire, or the other way round. We see a woman's hands drawing cards from a deck she has just arranged. As the configurations become visible, we see:_)

**The Empress over the Tower.** A Queen no longer of this world, forever dwelling in chambers from which everything sharp or poisonous is forbidden, watched by weary maidens as she watches the country through barred windows with unseeing eyes.

**The Emperor over Death.** An old King, still strong of arm, army, and treasure, able to purchase as much friendship as he could want, did he still believe in it. He commands with sharp words everybody but the ghosts, although he no longer pleads to them. It's said he speaks to them as his close and only friends. He fears nothing but trees, of which there's none for as far as one can see from the top of his royal castle, and pity the guard who, seeing one beginning to grow, neglects its report.

**The Chariot over the Hermit.** There are no witches in Scotland, it's been proclaimed. None but its Queen, it's also been whispered, although more than one jester has given tongue and life to pay for the joke. It's also been proclaimed that whoever denounces them will be compensated in rather more attractive ways. For a while there were plenty of piteous bonfires, but witches have become cleverer, and they are only found in winter, when firewood becomes mighty expensive with so many forests gone.

**The Hanged Man, next to Temperance.** King Macbeth has no issue of his own, neither through his queen nor through any of the mistresses he has dutifully taken over the years with rather less enthusiasm than another man would have shown. The heirs he adopted, babes or strong youths, died within a year of taking his name.

**The High Priestess.** Banquo had a daughter, product of a short dalliance with a strange woman he met near a cave. He had only remembered that night now and then, in dreams. But the girl was raised by her mother and those like her, and knows the night and the dreams and more.

**The Wheel of Fortune.**

(_The woman puts all the cards back in the deck and walks away, into or becoming the mist. We can't tell her features, or even her age. She could be a small children, a mature woman, or an old crone. She might be wearing a crown or not. The only thing we see clearly is the bloody dagger in her hand.)_


End file.
